Nick Reiner, the son of legendary actor and director Rob Reiner and photographer Michele Singer, has been arrested after allegedly killing his parents in their Los Angeles home.
Nick, 32, was arrested at 9:15 p.m. local time Sunday night and booked early Monday morning, according to online jail records from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. “He was arrested for murder,” a source tells Rolling Stone. He’s being held at The Parker Center jail in downtown Los Angeles with his bail set at $4 million.
Reiner and Singer were found dead Sunday afternoon. A source later confirmed to Rolling Stone that the couple’s youngest child, Romy, had found her parents’ bodies. Paramedics, firefighters, and police officers were dispatched to the Reiners’ home in the upscale Brentwood neighborhood. Detectives at the scene Sunday night were waiting for a warrant to properly search the house after the bodies were found.
At the time, LAPD Deputy Chief Alan Hamilton said that the police were “not seeking anyone as a suspect or as a person of interest,” though reports were starting to emerge that a family member was being questioned in connection to the killing. While a suspect had not yet been officially named, a source told Rolling Stone that Nick was involved in the alleged homicide.
While the circumstances surrounding the deaths of Reiner and Singer remain murky, Nick openly discussed his battle with drug addiction. He first went to rehab when he was 15 and was in and out of rehab facilities throughout his later teenage years. When he was 22, he drew on his experience for the semi-autobiographical film, Being Charlie, which he co-wrote and his father directed.
Speaking with the Los Angeles Times about the film, Rob and Michele spoke about the challenges Nick faced in rehab, and acknowledged their own shortsightedness regarding the efficacy of these programs for their son. “The program works for some people but it can’t work for everybody,” Rob said. “When Nick would tell us that it wasn’t working for him, we wouldn’t listen. We were desperate and because the people had diplomas on their wall, we listened to them when we should have been listening to our son.”
Michele noted, “We were so influenced by these people. They would tell us he’s a liar, that he was trying to manipulate us. And we believed them.”
